Books by Subject
Books by Subject
Behavior
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
This book investigates the philosophical, empirical, and theoretical
bases on which a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness can be founded. The
research questions reviewed include: Does perception occur without awareness?
Can the neural bases of perceptual awareness be visualized with brain-imaging
methods? What do unilateral neglect and extinction tell us about conscious and
unconscious processing? What is the contribution of brainstem nuclei to conscious
states? How can we identify mental processes uniquely associated with consciousness?
An introductory chapter proposes a theoretical framework for building a cognitive
neuroscience of consciousness, and two concluding chapters evaluate the progress
made so far.
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Book Description
Wendy Kline's lucid cultural history of eugenics
in America emphasizes the movement's central, continuing interaction with popular
notions of gender and morality. Kline shows how eugenics could seem a viable
solution to problems of moral disorder and sexuality, especially female sexuality,
during the first half of the twentieth century. Its appeal to social conscience
and shared desires to strengthen the family and civilization sparked widespread
public as well as scientific interest. Kline traces this growing public interest
by looking at a variety of sources, including the astonishing "morality
masque" that climaxed the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition;
the nationwide correspondence of the influential Human Betterment Foundation
in Pasadena, California; the medical and patient records of a "model"
state institution that sterilized thousands of allegedly feebleminded women
in California between 1900 and 1960; the surprising political and popular support
for sterilization that survived initial interest in, and then disassociation
from, Nazi eugenics policies; and a widely publicized court case in 1936 involving
the sterilization of a wealthy young woman deemed unworthy by her mother of
having children.
Kline's engaging account reflects the shift from "negative eugenics" (preventing procreation of the "unfit") to "positive eugenics," which encouraged procreation of the "fit," and it reveals that the "golden age" of eugenics actually occurred long after most historians claim the movement had vanished. The middle-class "passion for parenthood" in the '50s had its roots, she finds, in the positive eugenics campaign of the '30s and '40s. Many issues that originated in the eugenics movement remain controversial today, such as the use of IQ testing, the medical ethics of sterilization, the moral and legal implications of cloning and genetic screening, and even the debate on family values of the 1990s. Building a Better Race not only places eugenics at the center of modern reevaluations of female sexuality and morality but also acknowledges eugenics as an essential aspect of major social and cultural movements in the twentieth century
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Biology at Work : Rethinking
Sexual Equality (The Rutgers Series in Human Evolution)
by Kingsley
R. Browne
Hardcover (July 2002)
Rutgers University Press;
ISBN: 0813530539
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Editorial
Reviews
Amazon.com
Shattering deeply held beliefs about sexual relationships in humans
and other animals, The Myth of Monogamy is a much needed treatment of a
sensitive issue. Written by the husband and wife team of behavioral scientist
David P. Barash and psychiatrist Judith Eve Lipton, it glows with wit and warmth
even as it explores decades of research undermining traditional precepts of
mating rituals. Evidence from genetic testing has been devastating to those
seeking monogamy in the animal kingdom; even many birds, long prized as examples
of fidelity, turn out to have a high incidence of extra-pair couplings.
Furthermore, now that researchers have turned their attention to female sexual
behavior, they are finding more and more examples of aggressive adultery-seeking
in "the fairer sex." Writing about humans in the context of parental
involvement, the authors find complexity and humor:
Baby people are more like baby birds than baby mammals. To be sure, newborn cats and dogs are helpless, but this helplessness doesn't last for long. By contrast, infant Homo sapiens remain helpless for months ... and then they become helpless toddlers! Who in turn graduate to being virtually helpless youngsters. (And then? Clueless adolescents.) So there may be some payoff to women in being mated to a monogamous man, after all.
Careful to separate scientific description from moral prescription, Barash and Lipton still poke a little fun at our conceptions of monogamy and other kinds of relationships as "natural" or "unnatural." Shoring themselves up against the inevitable charges that their reporting will weaken the institution of marriage, they make sure to note that monogamy works well for most of those who desire it and that one of our uniquely human traits is our ability to overcome biology in some instances. If, as some claim, monogamy has been a tool used by men to assert property rights over women, then perhaps one day The Myth of Monogamy will be seen as a milestone for women's liberation. --Rob Lightner
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Biology, Evolution, and Human Nature
by Timothy H. Goldsmith, William
F. Zimmerman
Hardcover - 384 pages (November 2000)
John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471182192
Click
here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Beethoven's Anvil:
Music in Mind and Culture
by William
L. Benzon
Hardcover - 304 pages (October
23, 2001)
Basic Books; ISBN: 0465015433
; Dimensions (in inches): 1.20 x 9.50 x 6.36
This is a remarkable book: both daring and scholarly, it offers a sweeping vision of a vital, underappreciated force in our minds and culture.
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
The Feeling of What Happens : Body and Emotion
in the Making of Consciousness
by Antonio R. Damasio
Paperback - 400 pages (September
2000)
Harvest Books; ISBN: 0156010755
; Dimensions (in inches): 1.05 x 9.03 x 6.01
Other Editions: Hardcover
Editorial
Reviews
Amazon.com
As you read this, at some level you're aware that you're reading,
thanks to a standard human feature commonly referred to as consciousness. What
is it--a spiritual phenomenon, an evolutionary tool, a neurological side effect?
The best scientists love to tackle big, meaningful questions like this, and
neuroscientist Antonio Damasio jumps right in with The Feeling of What Happens,
a poetic examination of interior life through lenses of research, medical cases,
philosophical analysis, and unashamed introspection. Damasio's perspective is,
fortunately, becoming increasingly common in the scientific community; despite
all the protestations of old-guard behaviorists, subjective consciousness is
a plain fact to most of us and the demand for new methods of inquiry is finally
being met.
These new methods are not without rigor, though. Damasio and his colleagues examine patients with disruptions and interruptions in consciousness and take deep insights from these tragic lives while offering greater comfort and meaning to the sufferers. His thesis, that our sense of self arises from our need to map relations between self and others, is firmly rooted in medical and evolutionary research but stands up well to self-examination. His examples from the weird world of neurology are unsettling yet deeply humanizing--real people with serious problems spring to life in the pages, but they are never reduced to their deficits. The Feeling of What Happens captures the spirit of discovery as it plunges deeper than ever into the darkest waters yet. --Rob Lightner --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Editorial
Reviews
Amazon.com
Why don't zebras get ulcers--or heart disease, diabetes and other
chronic diseases--when people do? In a fascinating look at the science of
stress, biologist Robert Sapolsky presents an intriguing case, that people
develop such diseases partly because our bodies aren't designed for the constant
stresses of a modern-day life--like sitting in daily traffic jams or growing up
in poverty. Rather, they seem more built for the kind of short-term stress faced
by a zebra--like outrunning a lion.
With wit, graceful writing, and a sprinkling of Far Side cartoons, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers makes understanding the science of stress an adventure in discovery. "This book is a primer about stress, stress-related disease, and the mechanisms of coping with stress. How is it that our bodies can adapt to some stressful emergencies, while other ones make us sick? Why are some of us especially vulnerable to stress-related diseases, and what does that have to do with our personalities?"
Sapolsky, a Stanford University neuroscientist, explores stress's role in heart disease, diabetes, growth retardation, memory loss, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. He cites tantalizing studies of hyenas, baboons, and rodents, as well as of people of different cultures, to vividly make his points. And Sapolsky concludes with a hopeful chapter, titled "Managing Stress." Although he doesn't subscribe to the school of thought that hope cures all disease, Sapolsky highlights the studies that suggest we do have some control over stress-related ailments, based on how we perceive the stress and the kinds of social support we have.
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Editorial ReviewsReviews
Amazon.com
In the words of Jonathan Weiner, "Time, love, and memory are ... three
cornerstones of the pyramid of behavior." While some find it difficult to view humans
as mere machines, molecular biologists maintain that most behavior is genetically based.
Even skeptics and opponents agree that molecular biology may well change the way we all
live in the 21st century. Little-known outside this exploding field, Seymour Benzer, his
mentors, and his generations of students have studied the common fruit fly, Drosophila,
and discovered genes that seem to have some influence upon our internal clock, our
sexuality, and our ability to learn from our experiences.
Weiner (whose last book, The Beak of the Finch, won a Pulitzer Prize)
has written an affectionate history about the development of the science while offering
charming glimpses of the people involved--trading haircuts to stretch their grant money in
the early years, roaming the laboratory into the wee hours, naming the genes associated
with learning after Pavlov's dogs. It's not all sweetness and light, however; ethical
questions are raised, some of the hype (and hysteria) surrounding the human genome project
is dissipated, and the complicated "clockwork" gene "looks less like an
invitation to human intervention and more like a cautionary tale or object lesson for
anyone who might try, in the 21st century, to improve on nature's four-billion-year-old
designs." That said, the scientists in Weiner's tale reveal a very human side of this
fast-moving science, and their belief that they'll find answers to important questions is
contagious and compelling. As Benzer himself said, "It's a wonderful, fabulous world,
and it's been kicking around a long time." --C.B. Delaney
Click here
to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Reviews
Amazon.com
In Why They Kill, Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Rhodes traces
the life and career of criminologist Lonnie Athens, a man who took his own sad
and squalid life and turned it on its head to make a groundbreaking career as
a criminologist. Athens grew up in a violent, angry world. Rather than absorbing
the sickness and violence around him, though, he studied it, and eventually
developed a theory about how violent criminals are created. Rhodes's critical
examination of Athens's work forces readers to consider how violent our society
really is, how it became that way, and what might be done to change it. When
applied to well-known criminals such as Michael Tyson and Lee Harvey Oswald,
Athens's ideas become concrete and take on an urgent tone: it's easy to discuss
theories and predictors in the abstract, but these stories are real, and they
repeat themselves in our society at an alarming rate. Rhodes's approach to this
disturbing subject stands apart from many other crime books in its intelligence,
humanity, and empathy. These are not just descriptions of "scumbags"
and their brutal crimes, but intensely personal stories that reveal how a culture
of violence propagates itself. --Lisa Higgins
Click
here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Darwin's Black Box : The Biochemical
Challenge to Evolution
by Michael J. Behe
Paperback - 307 pages (March
1998)
Touchstone Books; ISBN: 0684834936
; Dimensions (in inches): 0.81 x 8.43 x 5.49
Other Editions:
Hardcover
Editorial
Reviews
Michael J. Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh
University, presents here a scientific argument for the existence of God. Examining
the evolutionary theory of the origins of life, he can go part of the way with
Darwin--he accepts the idea that species have been differentiated by the mechanism
of natural selection from a common ancestor. But he thinks that the essential
randomness of this process can explain evolutionary development only at the
macro level, not at the micro level of his expertise. Within the biochemistry
of living cells, he argues, life is "irreducibly complex." This is
the last black box to be opened, the end of the road for science. Faced with
complexity at this level, Behe suggests that it can only be the product of "intelligent
design." --This text refers to the Hardcover
edition.
Click
here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Editorial Reviews
Book
Description
Applying current theory and research, this book links the development
of sex differences in cognition to biological foundations, multiple social
processes, and contextual factors. Areas covered include evolutionary biology,
neuroscience, social roles, and cultural contextualism and the issues of the
onset, causes, developmental trajectories, and patterns in children's and
adolescents' thinking, problem-solving, academic performance, and social
conditions that are related to behaviors in each of these areas.
About
the Author
ANN McGILLICUDDY-DE LISI is the Marshall R. Metzgar Professor of
Psychology at Lafayette College.
RICHARD DE LISI is a Professor of Educational Psychology at Rutgers University.
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Strong Imagination : Madness, Creativity
and Human Nature
by Daniel Nettle
Paperback - 192 pages (April
2001)
Oxford Univ Press; ISBN:
0198507062 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.73 x 8.76 x 5.80
Click here to learn more to purchase from Amazon.com
Editorial Reviews
Book
Description
The Ontogeny of Human Bonding Systems takes an interdisciplinary look
at the phenomena of human bonding. The authors draw upon behavioral genetics,
molecular genetics of behavior, cognitive and affective neuroscience,
evolutionary psychology, human ethology, behavioral ecology, and the study of
attachment processes within developmental psychology. The topics will focus on
human reproduction, and fertility-related behavior in particular, and the
evolutionary origins and neural underpinnings of such behavior. This book is for
anyone interested in the evolutionary origins, neural underpinnings, and
psychological structure involved in human relationships.
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
The Biology of Belief: How Our Biology
Biases Our Beliefs and Perceptions
by Joseph Giovannoli
Paperback - 389 pages (January
29, 2001)
Rosetta Press, Inc.; ISBN:
0970813716
The process by which we come to believe something new involves a labyrinth of thought-influencing biological and other factors. In attempting to understand this labyrinth and its effect on how we acquire beliefs, this work addresses a number of considerations. The profound effect brain evolution has had on our way of perceiving the world is one example. Other elements include brain module interactions, neurotransmitters, inborn biological predispositions, and the interdependence of belief and perception. Together with other factors, they collectively comprise the biology of belief. How our beliefs come to define our realities is revealed through an exploration of the processes by which beliefs are created, changed, transmitted, and manipulated. The text challenges readers to consider whether biological and belief mechanisms resistant to change will permit long-held cultural beliefs to adapt rapidly enough to address the new realities of our changing world.
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Adaptation and Human Behavior : An Anthropolotical Perspective (Evolutionary Foundations of Human Behavior)Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com (the paperback edition)
The Maladapted Mind : Classic Readings in Evolutionary PsychopathologyClick here to learn more purchase from Amazon.com
Nymphomania: A HistoryAvailability: This title usually ships within 2-3 days.
Other Editions: Hardcover
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Table of
Contents
Preface
Necessary But Not Sufficient: The Problem of
Variability in Individual Outcomes
Evolutionary and Ecological Influences
Genetic, Neural, and Hormonal Influences
Biomedical and Nutritional Influences
Phenotypic Influences
Proximal Environmental Influences
Distal Environmental Influences
Linkages Among Multiple Influences
Temporal and Specificity Process
Integrating Multiple Influences, Midlevel Processes, and Systems
From Principles to Practice
References
Author Index
Subject Index
About the Author
Click
here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Deception: Perspectives on Human and Nonhuman Decit (Suny Series in Animal Behavior)
By Robert W. Mitchell & Nicholas S. Thompson (Editor)
Hardcover
State University of New York Press, Feb. 1986
ISBN: 0887061079
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Perspectives in Ethology: Behavioral Design, Vol. II
By Nicholas Thompson
Hardcover
Plenum Publishing Corp. May, 1995
ISBN: 0306449064
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
Perspective In Ethology: Behavior and Evolution
By P.P.G. Bateson & Peter H. Klopfer
Hardcover
Plenum Publishing, Sept. 1993
ISBN: 0306443988
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com
A Natural History of Rape : Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion
The authors base their argument partly on statistics showing that in the United States, most rape victims are of childbearing age. But disturbingly large numbers of rapes of children, elderly women, and other men are never adequately explained. And the actual reproductive success of rape is not clear. Thornhill and Palmer's biological interpretation is just that--an interpretation, one that won't withstand tough scientific scrutiny. They further claim that the mental trauma of rape is greater for women of childbearing age (especially married women) than it is for elderly women or children. The data supporting these assertions come from a single psychological study, done by Thornhill in the 1970s, that mixes first-person interviews with caretaker's interpretations of children's reactions.
While Thornhill and Palmer claim that they are trying to look objectively at the root causes of rape, they focus almost entirely on data that support their thesis, forcing them to write an evolutionary "just-so" story. The central problem is evident in this quote, from the chapter "The Pain and Anguish of Rape":
We feel that the woman's perspective on rape can be best understood by considering the negative influences of rape on female reproductive success.... It is also highly possible that selection favored the outward manifestations of psychological pain because it communicated the female's strong negative attitude about the rapist to her husband and/or her relatives.
Women are disturbed by rape mostly because they are worried about what their husbands might think? In statements like this, the authors repeatedly discount the psychological aspects of rape, such as fear, humiliation, loss of autonomy, and powerlessness, and focus solely on personal shame.
A Natural History of Rape will no doubt have people talking about
rape and its causes, and perhaps thinking about real ways of preventing it. In
fact, the authors suggest that all young men be educated frankly about their
(theoretical) genetic desire to rape. And it reopens the debate about the role
of sex in rape. But without more and better data supporting their conclusions,
Thornhill and Palmer are doing the very thing they criticize feminists and
social scientists of doing: just talking. --Therese Littleton
Click here to learn more or purchase from Amazon.com